DADT Persists Outside the Military

A lesbian soccer coach at the Baptist school Belmont University in Nashville, TN left her job shortly after announcing to her team that she was gay and would be having a baby with her partner of eight years. Though the university says Lise Howe’s departure was a “mutual agreement,” a senior on the soccer team says a parent of another player had complained following her announcement, and that the university had shortly thereafter told Howe that if she did not resign she would be fired. The athletic director also apparently told the team captain that the baby “was going to be a problem” because it “would conflict with the university’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ approach.”